Search results for: Relative Rates
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1466

Search results for: Relative Rates

596 A Study on Vulnerability of Alahsa Governorate to Generate Urban Heat Islands

Authors: Ilham S. M. Elsayed

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to investigate Alahsa Governorate status and its vulnerability to generate urban heat islands. Alahsa Governorate is a famous oasis in the Arabic Peninsula including several oil centers. Extensive literature review was done to collect previous relative data on the urban heat island of Alahsa Governorate. Data used for the purpose of this research were collected from authorized bodies who control weather station networks over Alahsa Governorate, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. Although, the number of weather station networks within the region is very limited and the analysis using GIS software and its techniques is difficult and limited, the data analyzed confirm an increase in temperature for more than 2 °C from 2004 to 2014. Such increase is considerable whenever human health and comfort are the concern. The increase of temperature within one decade confirms the availability of urban heat islands. The study concludes that, Alahsa Governorate is vulnerable to create urban heat islands and more attention should be drawn to strategic planning of the governorate that is developing with a high pace and considerable increasing levels of urbanization.

Keywords: Urban heat island, Alahsa Governorate, weather station, population density.

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595 Optimization of Transmission Lines Loading in TNEP Using Decimal Codification Based GA

Authors: H. Shayeghi, M. Mahdavi

Abstract:

Transmission network expansion planning (TNEP) is a basic part of power system planning that determines where, when and how many new transmission lines should be added to the network. Up till now, various methods have been presented to solve the static transmission network expansion planning (STNEP) problem. But in all of these methods, lines adequacy rate has not been considered at the end of planning horizon, i.e., expanded network misses adequacy after some times and needs to be expanded again. In this paper, expansion planning has been implemented by merging lines loading parameter in the STNEP and inserting investment cost into the fitness function constraints using genetic algorithm. Expanded network will possess a maximum adequacy to provide load demand and also the transmission lines overloaded later. Finally, adequacy index could be defined and used to compare some designs that have different investment costs and adequacy rates. In this paper, the proposed idea has been tested on the Garvers network. The results show that the network will possess maximum efficiency economically.

Keywords: Adequacy Optimization, Transmission Expansion Planning, DCGA.

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594 The Role of Nozzle-Exit Conditions on the Flow Field of a Plane Jet

Authors: Ravinesh C. Deo

Abstract:

This article reviews the role of nozzle-exit conditions on the flow field of a plane jet. The jet issuing from a sharp-edged orifice plate at a Reynolds number (Re=18000) with nozzle aspect ratio (AR=72) exhibits the greatest shear-layer instabilities, highest entrainment and jet-spreading rates compared to the radially contoured nozzle. The growth rate of the shear-layer is the highest for the orifice-jet although this property could be amplified for larger Re or AR. A local peak in turbulent energy is found at x»10h. The peak appears to be elevated for an orifice-jet with lower Re or AR. The far-field energy sustained by the orifice-jet exceeds the contoured case although a higher Re and AR may enhance this value. The spectra demonstrated the largest eddy structures for the contoured nozzle. However, the frequency of coherent eddies is higher for the orifice-jet, with a larger magnitude achievable for lower Re and AR

Keywords: Plane jet, Reynolds number, nozzle-exit conditions, nozzle geometry, aspect ratio.

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593 Application of PSO Technique for Seismic Control of Tall Building

Authors: A. Shayeghi, H. Shayeghi, H. Eimani Kalasar

Abstract:

In recent years, tuned mass damper (TMD) control systems for civil engineering structures have attracted considerable attention. This paper emphasizes on the application of particle swarm application (PSO) to design and optimize the parameters of the TMD control scheme for achieving the best results in the reduction of the building response under earthquake excitations. The Integral of the Time multiplied Absolute value of the Error (ITAE) based on relative displacement of all floors in the building is taken as a performance index of the optimization criterion. The problem of robustly TMD controller design is formatted as an optimization problem based on the ITAE performance index to be solved using the PSO technique which has a story ability to find the most optimistic results. An 11- story realistic building, located in the city of Rasht, Iran is considered as a test system to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed method. The results analysis through the time-domain simulation and some performance indices reveals that the designed PSO based TMD controller has an excellent capability in reduction of the seismically excited example building.

Keywords: TMD, Particle Swarm Optimization, Tall Buildings, Structural Dynamics.

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592 Simulating Climate Change (Temperature and Soil Moisture) in a Mixed-Deciduous Forest, Ontario, Canada

Authors: David Goldblum, Lesley S. Rigg

Abstract:

To simulate expected climate change, we implemented a two-factor (temperature and soil moisture) field design in a forest in Ontario, Canada. To manipulate moisture input, we erected rain-exclusion structures. Under each structure, plots were watered with one of three treatments and thermally controlled with three heat treatments to simulate changes in air temperature and rainfall based on the climate model (GCM) predictions for the study area. Environmental conditions (including untreated controls) were monitored tracking air temperature, soil temperature, soil moisture, and photosynthetically active radiation. We measured rainfall and relative humidity at the site outside the rain-exclusion structures. Analyses of environmental conditions demonstrates that the temperature manipulation was most effective at maintaining target temperature during the early part of the growing season, but it was more difficult to keep the warmest treatment at 5º C above ambient by late summer. Target moisture regimes were generally achieved however incoming solar radiation was slightly attenuated by the structures.

Keywords: Acer saccharum, climate change, forest, environmental manipulation.

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591 Physiological and Biochemical Responses to Drought Stress of Chickpea Genotypes

Authors: E. Ceyhan, A. Kahraman, M. Önder, M.K. Ateş, S. Karadaş, R. Topak, M.A. Avcı

Abstract:

The experimental design was 4 x 5 factorial with three replications in fully controlled research greenhouse in Department of Soil Sciences and Plant Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Selcuk in the year of 2009. Determination of tolerant chickpea genotypes to drought was made in the research. Additionally, sophisticated effects of drought on plant growth and development, biochemical and physical properties or physical defense mechanisms were presented. According to the results, the primary genotypes were Ilgın YP (0.0063 g/gh) for leaf water capacity, 22235 70.44(%) for relative water content, 22159 (82.47%) for real water content, 22159 (5.03 mg/l) for chlorophyll a+b, Ilgın YP (125.89 nmol H2O2.dak-1/ mg protein-1) for peroxidase, Yunak YP (769.67 unit/ mg protein-1) for superoxide dismutase, Seydişehir YP (16.74 μg.TA-1) for proline, Gökçe (80.01 nmol H2O2.dak-1/ mg protein-1) for catalase. Consequently, all the genotypes increased their enzyme activity depending on the increasing of drought stress consider with the effects of drought stress on leaf enzyme activity. Chickpea genotypes are increasing enzyme activity against to drought stress.

Keywords: Chickpea, drought, enzyme, tolerance to drought

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590 Retail Inventory Management for Perishable Products with Two Bins Strategy

Authors: Madhukar Nagare, Pankaj Dutta, Amey Kambli

Abstract:

Perishable goods constitute a large portion of retailer inventory and lose value with time due to deterioration and/or obsolescence. Retailers dealing with such goods required considering the factors of short shelf life and the dependency of sales on inventory displayed in determining optimal procurement policy. Many retailers follow the practice of using two bins - primary bin sales fresh items at a list price and secondary bin sales unsold items at a discount price transferred from primary bin on attaining certain age. In this paper, mathematical models are developed for primary bin and for secondary bin that maximizes profit with decision variables of order quantities, optimal review period and optimal selling price at secondary bin. The demand rates in two bins are assumed to be deterministic and dependent on displayed inventory level, price and age but independent of each other. The validity of the model is shown by solving an example and the sensitivity analysis of the model is also reported.

Keywords: Retail Inventory, Perishable Products, Two Bin, Profitable Sales.

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589 CFD Analysis of Two Phase Flow in a Horizontal Pipe – Prediction of Pressure Drop

Authors: P. Bhramara, V. D. Rao, K. V. Sharma , T. K. K. Reddy

Abstract:

In designing of condensers, the prediction of pressure drop is as important as the prediction of heat transfer coefficient. Modeling of two phase flow, particularly liquid – vapor flow under diabatic conditions inside a horizontal tube using CFD analysis is difficult with the available two phase models in FLUENT due to continuously changing flow patterns. In the present analysis, CFD analysis of two phase flow of refrigerants inside a horizontal tube of inner diameter, 0.0085 m and 1.2 m length is carried out using homogeneous model under adiabatic conditions. The refrigerants considered are R22, R134a and R407C. The analysis is performed at different saturation temperatures and at different flow rates to evaluate the local frictional pressure drop. Using Homogeneous model, average properties are obtained for each of the refrigerants that is considered as single phase pseudo fluid. The so obtained pressure drop data is compared with the separated flow models available in literature.

Keywords: Adiabatic conditions, CFD analysis, Homogeneousmodel and Liquid – Vapor flow.

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588 Left Ventricular Model Using Second Order Electromechanical Coupling: Effects of Viscoelastic Damping

Authors: Elie H. Karam, Antoine B. Abche

Abstract:

It is known that the heart interacts with and adapts to its venous and arterial loading conditions. Various experimental studies and modeling approaches have been developed to investigate the underlying mechanisms. This paper presents a model of the left ventricle derived based on nonlinear stress-length myocardial characteristics integrated over truncated ellipsoidal geometry, and second-order dynamic mechanism for the excitation-contraction coupling system. The results of the model presented here describe the effects of the viscoelastic damping element of the electromechanical coupling system on the hemodynamic response. Different heart rates are considered to study the pacing effects on the performance of the left-ventricle against constant preload and afterload conditions under various damping conditions. The results indicate that the pacing process of the left ventricle has to take into account, among other things, the viscoelastic damping conditions of the myofilament excitation-contraction process.

Keywords: Myocardial sarcomere, cardiac pump, excitationcontraction coupling, viscoelasicity

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587 Evaluation of the Microbiological, Chemical and Sensory Quality of Carp Processed by the Sous Vide Method

Authors: Özlem Pelin Can

Abstract:

This study evaluated the microbiological quality and the sensory characteristics of carp fillets processed by the sousvide method when stored at 2 and 10 °C. Four different combinations of sauced–storage were studied then stored at 2 or 10 °C was evaluate periodically sensory, microbiological and chemical quality. Batches stored at 2 °C had lower growth rates of mesophiles and psychrotrophs. Moreover, these counts decreased by increasing the heating temperature and time. Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Clostridium perfringens and Listeria monocytogenes were not found in any of the samples. The heat treatment of 90 °C for 15 min and sauced was the most effective to ensure the safety and extend the shelf-life of sousvide carp preserving its sensory characteristics. This study establishes the microbiological quality of sous vide carp and emphasizes the relevance of the raw materials, heat treatment and storage temperature to ensure the safety of the product.

Keywords: Sous- vide methods, carp, sauce, microbiological, chemical and sensory quality

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586 Breeding Biology and Induced Breeding Status of Freshwater Mud Eel, Monopterus cuchia

Authors: M. F. Miah, H. Ali, E. Zannath, T. M. Shuvra, M. N. Naser, M. K. Ahmed

Abstract:

In this study, breeding biology and induced breeding of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was observed during the experimental period from February to June, 2013. Breeding biology of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was considered in terms of gonadosomatic index, length-weight relationship of gonad, ova diameter and fecundity. The ova diameter was recorded from 0.3 mm to 4.30 mm and the individual fecundity was recorded from 155 to 1495 while relative fecundity was found from 2.64 to 12.45. The fecundity related to body weight and length of fish was also discussed. A peak of GSI was observed 2.14±0.2 in male and 5.1 ±1.09 in female. Induced breeding of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was also practiced with different doses of different inducing agents like pituitary gland (PG), human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) and Ovuline-a synthetic hormone in different environmental conditions. However, it was observed that the artificial breeding of freshwater mud eel, Monopterus cuchia was not yet succeeded through inducing agents in captive conditions, rather the inducing agent showed negative impacts on fecundity and ovarian tissues. It was seen that mature eggs in the oviduct were reduced, absorbed and some eggs were found in spoiled condition.

Keywords: Breeding biology, induced breeding, Monopterus cuchia.

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585 A Review on Bearing Capacity Factor Nγ of Shallow Foundations with Different Shapes

Authors: S. Taghvamanesh, R. Ziaie Moayed

Abstract:

There are several methods for calculating the bearing capacity factors of foundations and retaining walls. In this paper, the bearing capacity factor Nγ (shape factor) for different types of foundation have been investigated. The formula for bearing capacity on c–φ–γ soil can still be expressed by Terzaghi’s equation except that the bearing capacity factor Nγ depends on the surcharge ratio, and friction angle φ. It is apparent that the value of Nγ increases irregularly with the friction angle of the subsoil, which leads to an excessive increment in Nγ of foundations with larger width. Also, the bearing capacity factor Nγ will significantly decrease with an increase in foundation`s width. It also should be highlighted that the effect of shape and dimension will be less noticeable with a decrease in the relative density of the soil. Hence, the bearing capacity factor Nγ relatively depends on foundation`s width, surcharge and roughness ratio. This paper presents the results of various studies conducted on the bearing capacity factor Nγ of: different types of shallow foundation and foundations with irregular geometry (ring footing, triangular footing, shell foundations and etc.) Further studies on the effect of bearing capacity factor Nγ on mat foundations and the characteristics of this factor with or without consideration for the presence of friction between soil and foundation are recommended.

Keywords: Bearing capacity, Bearing capacity factor, irregular foundation, shallow foundation.

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584 The Study of the Variability of Anticipatory Postural Adjustments in Recurrent Non-specific LBP Patients

Authors: Rosita Hedayati , Sedighe Kahrizi , Mohammad Parnianpour , Fariba Bahrami , Anoshirvan Kazemnejad

Abstract:

The study of the variability of the postural strategies in low back pain patients, as a criterion in evaluation of the adaptability of this system to the environmental demands is the purpose of this study. A cross-sectional case-control study was performed on 21 recurrent non-specific low back pain patients and 21 healthy volunteers. The electromyography activity of Deltoid, External Oblique (EO), Transverse Abdominis/Internal Oblique (TrA/IO) and Erector Spine (ES) muscles of each person was recorded in 75 rapid arm flexion with maximum acceleration. Standard deviation of trunk muscles onset relative to deltoid muscle onset were statistically analyzed by MANOVA . The results show that chronic low back pain patients exhibit less variability in their anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) in comparison with the control group. There is a decrease in variability of postural control system of recurrent non-specific low back pain patients that can result in the persistence of pain and chronicity by decreasing the adaptability to environmental demands.

Keywords: EMG Onset Latency, Variability, Posture, Non - specific Low Back Pain

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583 Coconut Shells as the Alternative Equipment for Foot Reflexology

Authors: Nichanant Sermsri, Chananchida Yuktirat

Abstract:

This research was the experimental research. Its purpose was to find out how coconut shells can be adapted to be equipment for foot and calf reflexology. The sample group was 58 female street vendors in Thewet Market, Bangkok, selected by selection criteria and voluntary. The data collecting tool was the Visual Analogue Scale. The massaging tool made from coconut shells was the key equipment for this research. The research team assessed the level of exhaustion and heart rate among sample group before and after the massage, then analyzed the data by mean, standard deviation and paired sample t-test.

We found out from the research that

  1. The level of exhaustion decreased 4.529 levels after the massage and the standard deviation was 1.6195. The heart rates went down 11.67 times/minute and the standard deviation was 6.742.
  2. The level of exhaustion and heart rate after the massage decreased with the statistically significance at 0.01

Keywords: Coconut Shells, Foot Massage, Foot Reflexology, Massaging Plate.

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582 Is the Liberalization Policy Effective on Improving the Bivariate Cointegration of Current Accounts, Foreign Exchange, Stock Prices? Further Evidence from Asian Markets

Authors: Chen-Yin Kuo

Abstract:

This paper fist examines three set of bivariate cointegrations between any two of current accounts, stock markets, and currency exchange markets in ten Asian countries. Furthermore, we examined the effect of country characters on this bivariate cointegration. Our findings suggest that for three sets of cointegration test, each sample country at least exists one cointegration. India consistently exhibited a bi-directional causal relationship between any two of three indicators. Unlike Pan et al. (2007) and Phylaktis and Ravazzolo (2005), we found that such cointegration is influenced by three characteristics: capital control; flexibility in foreign exchange rates; and the ratio of trade to GDP. These characteristics are the result of liberalization in each Asian country. This implies that liberalization policies are effective on improving the cointegration between any two of financial markets and current account for ten Asian countries.

Keywords: Current account, stock price, foreign exchange rate, country characteristics, bivariate cointegration, bi-directional causal relationships.

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581 Cooling-Rate Induced Fiber Birefringence Variation in Regenerated High Birefringent Fiber

Authors: M. H. Lai, D. S. Gunawardena, K. S. Lim, H. Ahmad

Abstract:

In this paper, we have reported birefringence manipulation in regenerated high birefringent fiber Bragg grating (RPMG) by using CO2 laser annealing method. The results indicate that the birefringence of RPMG remains unchanged after CO2 laser annealing followed by slow cooling process, but reduced after fast cooling process (~5.6×10-5). After a series of annealing procedures with different cooling rates, the obtained results show that slower the cooling rate, higher the birefringence of RPMG. The volume, thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) and glass transition temperature (Tg) change of stress applying part in RPMG during cooling process are responsible for the birefringence change. Therefore, these findings are important to the RPMG sensor in high and dynamic temperature environment. The measuring accuracy, range and sensitivity of RPMG sensor is greatly affected by its birefringence value. This work also opens up a new application of CO2 laser for fiber annealing and birefringence modification.

Keywords: Birefringence, CO2 laser annealing, regenerated gratings, thermal stress.

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580 Efficient DTW-Based Speech Recognition System for Isolated Words of Arabic Language

Authors: Khalid A. Darabkh, Ala F. Khalifeh, Baraa A. Bathech, Saed W. Sabah

Abstract:

Despite the fact that Arabic language is currently one of the most common languages worldwide, there has been only a little research on Arabic speech recognition relative to other languages such as English and Japanese. Generally, digital speech processing and voice recognition algorithms are of special importance for designing efficient, accurate, as well as fast automatic speech recognition systems. However, the speech recognition process carried out in this paper is divided into three stages as follows: firstly, the signal is preprocessed to reduce noise effects. After that, the signal is digitized and hearingized. Consequently, the voice activity regions are segmented using voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm. Secondly, features are extracted from the speech signal using Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) algorithm. Moreover, delta and acceleration (delta-delta) coefficients have been added for the reason of improving the recognition accuracy. Finally, each test word-s features are compared to the training database using dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm. Utilizing the best set up made for all affected parameters to the aforementioned techniques, the proposed system achieved a recognition rate of about 98.5% which outperformed other HMM and ANN-based approaches available in the literature.

Keywords: Arabic speech recognition, MFCC, DTW, VAD.

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579 Finite Element Analysis of Ball-Joint Boots under Environmental and Endurance Tests

Authors: Young-Doo Kwon, Seong-Hwa Jun, Dong-Jin Lee, Hyung-Seok Lee

Abstract:

Ball joints support and guide certain automotive parts that move relative to the frame of the vehicle. Such ball joints are covered and protected from dust, mud, and other interfering materials by ball-joint boots made of rubber—a flexible and near-incompressible material. The boots may experience twisting and bending deformations because of the motion of the joint arm. Thus, environmental and endurance tests of ball-joint boots apply both bending and twisting deformations. In this study, environmental and endurance testing was simulated via the finite element method performed by using a commercial software package. The ranges of principal stress and principal strain values that are known to directly affect the fatigue lives of the parts were sought. By defining these ranges, the number of iterative tests and modifications of the materials and dimensions of the boot can be decreased. Therefore, instead of performing actual part tests, manufacturers can perform standard fatigue tests in trials of different materials by applying only the defined range of stress or strain values.

Keywords: Boot, endurance tests, rubber, FEA.

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578 A Simplified Single Correlator Rake Receiver for CDMA Communications

Authors: K. Murali Krishna, Abhijit Mitra, C. Ardil

Abstract:

This paper presents a single correlator RAKE receiver for direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems. In conventional RAKE receivers, multiple correlators are used to despread the multipath signals and then to align and combine those signals in a later stage before making a bit decision. The simplified receiver structure presented here uses a single correlator and single code sequence generator to recover the multipaths. Modified Walsh- Hadamard codes are used here for data spreading that provides better uncorrelation properties for the multipath signals. The main advantage of this receiver structure is that it requires only a single correlator and a code generator in contrary to the conventional RAKE receiver concept with multiple correlators. It is shown in results that the proposed receiver achieves better bit error rates in comparison with the conventional one for more than one multipaths.

Keywords: RAKE receiver, Code division multiple access, ModifiedWalsh-Hadamard codes, Single correlator.

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577 Multi-Sensor Target Tracking Using Ensemble Learning

Authors: Bhekisipho Twala, Mantepu Masetshaba, Ramapulana Nkoana

Abstract:

Multiple classifier systems combine several individual classifiers to deliver a final classification decision. However, an increasingly controversial question is whether such systems can outperform the single best classifier, and if so, what form of multiple classifiers system yields the most significant benefit. Also, multi-target tracking detection using multiple sensors is an important research field in mobile techniques and military applications. In this paper, several multiple classifiers systems are evaluated in terms of their ability to predict a system’s failure or success for multi-sensor target tracking tasks. The Bristol Eden project dataset is utilised for this task. Experimental and simulation results show that the human activity identification system can fulfil requirements of target tracking due to improved sensors classification performances with multiple classifier systems constructed using boosting achieving higher accuracy rates.

Keywords: Single classifier, machine learning, ensemble learning, multi-sensor target tracking.

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576 A Fuzzy Time Series Forecasting Model for Multi-Variate Forecasting Analysis with Fuzzy C-Means Clustering

Authors: Emrah Bulut, Okan Duru, Shigeru Yoshida

Abstract:

In this study, a fuzzy integrated logical forecasting method (FILF) is extended for multi-variate systems by using a vector autoregressive model. Fuzzy time series forecasting (FTSF) method was recently introduced by Song and Chissom [1]-[2] after that Chen improved the FTSF method. Rather than the existing literature, the proposed model is not only compared with the previous FTS models, but also with the conventional time series methods such as the classical vector autoregressive model. The cluster optimization is based on the C-means clustering method. An empirical study is performed for the prediction of the chartering rates of a group of dry bulk cargo ships. The root mean squared error (RMSE) metric is used for the comparing of results of methods and the proposed method has superiority than both traditional FTS methods and also the classical time series methods.

Keywords: C-means clustering, Fuzzy time series, Multi-variate design

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575 A Study of Distinctive Models for Pre-hospital EMS in Thailand: Knowledge Capture

Authors: R. Sinthavalai, N. Memongkol, N. Patthanaprechawong, J. Viriyanantavong, C. Choosuk

Abstract:

In Thailand, the practice of pre-hospital Emergency Medical Service (EMS) in each area reveals the different growth rates and effectiveness of the practices. Those can be found as the diverse quality and quantity. To shorten the learning curve prior to speed-up the practices in other areas, story telling and lessons learnt from the effective practices are valued as meaningful knowledge. To this paper, it was to ascertain the factors, lessons learnt and best practices that have impact as contributing to the success of prehospital EMS system. Those were formulized as model prior to speedup the practice in other areas. To develop the model, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), which is widely recognized as a framework for organizational quality assessment and improvement, was chosen as the discussion framework. Remarkably, this study was based on the consideration of knowledge capture; however it was not to complete the loop of knowledge activities. Nevertheless, it was to highlight the recognition of knowledge capture, which is the initiation of knowledge management.

Keywords: Emergency Medical Service, Modeling, MBNQA, Thailand.

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574 Biohydrogen Production from Starch Residues

Authors: Francielo Vendruscolo

Abstract:

This review summarizes the potential of starch agroindustrial residues as substrate for biohydrogen production. Types of potential starch agroindustrial residues, recent developments and bio-processing conditions for biohydrogen production will be discussed. Biohydrogen is a clean energy source with great potential to be an alternative fuel, because it releases energy explosively in heat engines or generates electricity in fuel cells producing water as only by-product. Anaerobic hydrogen fermentation or dark fermentation seems to be more favorable, since hydrogen is yielded at high rates and various organic waste enriched with carbohydrates as substrate result in low cost for hydrogen production. Abundant biomass from various industries could be source for biohydrogen production where combination of waste treatment and energy production would be an advantage. Carbohydrate-rich nitrogendeficient solid wastes such as starch residues can be used for hydrogen production by using suitable bioprocess technologies. Alternatively, converting biomass into gaseous fuels, such as biohydrogen is possibly the most efficient way to use these agroindustrial residues.

Keywords: Biofuel, dark fermentation, starch residues, food waste.

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573 Effects of Upflow Liquid Velocity on Performance of Expanded Granular Sludge Bed (EGSB) System

Authors: Seni Karnchanawong, Wachara Phajee

Abstract:

The effects of upflow liquid velocity (ULV) on performance of expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) system were investigated. The EGSB reactor, made from galvanized steel pipe 0.10 m diameter and 5 m height, had been used to treat piggery wastewater, after passing through acidification tank. It consisted of 39.3 l working volume in reaction zone and 122 l working volume in sedimentation zone, at the upper part. The reactor was seeded with anaerobically digested sludge and operated at the ULVs of 4, 8, 12 and 16 m/h, consecutively, corresponding to organic loading rates of 9.6 – 13.0 kg COD/ (m3.d). The average COD concentrations in the influent were 9,601 – 13,050 mg/l. The COD removal was not significantly different, i.e. 93.0% - 94.0%, except at ULV 12 m/h where SS in the influent was exceptionally high so that VSS washout had occurred, leading to low COD removal. The FCOD and VFA concentrations in the effluent of all experiments were not much different, indicating the same range of treatment performance. The biogas production decreased at higher ULV and ULV of 4 m/h is suggested as design criterion for EGSB system.

Keywords: Expanded granular sludge bed system, piggery wastewater, upflow liquid velocity

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572 Extraction of Polystyrene from Styrofoam Waste: Synthesis of Novel Chelating Resin for the Enrichment and Speciation of Cr(III)/Cr(VI) Ions in Industrial Effluents

Authors: Ali N. Siyal, Saima Q. Memon, Latif Elçi, Aydan Elçi

Abstract:

Polystyrene (PS) was extracted from Styrofoam (expanded polystyrene foam) waste, so called white pollutant. The PS was functionalized with N,N- Bis(2-aminobenzylidene)benzene-1,2-diamine (ABA) ligand through an azo spacer. The resin was characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy and elemental analysis. The PS-N=N-ABA resin was used for the enrichment and speciation of Cr(III)/Cr(VI) ions and total Cr determination in aqueous samples by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The separation of Cr(III)/Cr(VI) ions was achieved at pH 2. The recovery of Cr(VI) ions was achieved ≥ 95.0% at optimum parameters: pH 2; resin amount 300mg; flow rates 2.0mL min-1 of solution and 2.0mL min-1 of eluent (2.0mol L-1 HNO3). Total Cr was determined by oxidation of Cr(III) to Cr(VI) ions using H2O2. The limit of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) of Cr(VI) were found to be 0.40 and 1.20μg L-1, respectively with preconcentration factor of 250. Total saturation and breakthrough capacitates of the resin for Cr(IV) ions were found to be 0.181 and 0.531mmol g-1, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the preconcentration/speciation of Cr(III)/Cr(VI) ions and determination of total Cr in industrial effluents.

Keywords: Styrofoam waste, Polymeric resin, Preconcentration, Speciation, Cr(III)/Cr(VI) ions, FAAS.

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571 Seismic Control of Tall Building Using a New Optimum Controller Based on GA

Authors: A. Shayeghi, H. Eimani Kalasar, H. Shayeghi

Abstract:

This paper emphasizes on the application of genetic algorithm (GA) to optimize the parameters of the TMD for achieving the best results in the reduction of the building response under earthquake excitations. The Integral of the Time multiplied Absolute value of the Error (ITAE) based on relative displacement of all floors in the building is taken as a performance index of the optimization criterion. The problem of robustly TMD controller design is formatted as an optimization problem based on the ITAE performance index to be solved using GA that has a story ability to find the most optimistic results. An 11–story realistic building, located in the city of Rasht, Iran is considered as a test system to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed GA based TMD (GATMD) controller without specifying which mode should be controlled. The results of the proposed GATMD controller are compared with the uncontrolled structure through timedomain simulation and some performance indices. The results analysis reveals that the designed GA based TMD controller has an excellent capability in reduction of the seismically excited example building and the ITAE performance, that is so for remains as unknown, can be introduced a new criteria - method for structural dynamic design.

Keywords: Tuned Mass Damper, Genetic Algorithm, TallBuildings, Structural Dynamics.

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570 Decimation Filter Design Toolbox for Multi-Standard Wireless Transceivers using MATLAB

Authors: Shahana T. K., Babita R. Jose, K. Poulose Jacob, Sreela Sasi

Abstract:

The demand for new telecommunication services requiring higher capacities, data rates and different operating modes have motivated the development of new generation multi-standard wireless transceivers. A multi-standard design often involves extensive system level analysis and architectural partitioning, typically requiring extensive calculations. In this research, a decimation filter design tool for wireless communication standards consisting of GSM, WCDMA, WLANa, WLANb, WLANg and WiMAX is developed in MATLAB® using GUIDE environment for visual analysis. The user can select a required wireless communication standard, and obtain the corresponding multistage decimation filter implementation using this toolbox. The toolbox helps the user or design engineer to perform a quick design and analysis of decimation filter for multiple standards without doing extensive calculation of the underlying methods.

Keywords: Decimation filter, MATLAB® toolbox, Multistandard transceivers, Sigma-delta A/D converter.

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569 Reliable Line-of-Sight and Non-Line-of-Sight Propagation Channel Identification in Ultra-Wideband Wireless Networks

Authors: Mohamed Adnan Landolsi, Ali F. Almutairi

Abstract:

The paper addresses the problem of line-of-sight (LOS) vs. non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation link identification in ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless networks, which is necessary for improving the accuracy of radiolocation and positioning applications. A LOS/NLOS likelihood hypothesis testing approach is applied based on exploiting distinctive statistical features of the channel impulse response (CIR) using parameters related to the “skewness” of the CIR and its root mean square (RMS) delay spread. A log-normal fit is presented for the probability densities of the CIR parameters. Simulation results show that different environments (residential, office, outdoor, etc.) have measurable differences in their CIR parameters’ statistics, which is then exploited in determining the nature of the propagation channels. Correct LOS/NLOS channel identification rates exceeding 90% are shown to be achievable for most types of environments. Additional improvement is also obtained by combining both CIR skewness and RMS delay statistics.

Keywords: Ultra-wideband, propagation, line-of-sight, non-line-of-sight, identification.

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568 A Novel In-Place Sorting Algorithm with O(n log z) Comparisons and O(n log z) Moves

Authors: Hanan Ahmed-Hosni Mahmoud, Nadia Al-Ghreimil

Abstract:

In-place sorting algorithms play an important role in many fields such as very large database systems, data warehouses, data mining, etc. Such algorithms maximize the size of data that can be processed in main memory without input/output operations. In this paper, a novel in-place sorting algorithm is presented. The algorithm comprises two phases; rearranging the input unsorted array in place, resulting segments that are ordered relative to each other but whose elements are yet to be sorted. The first phase requires linear time, while, in the second phase, elements of each segment are sorted inplace in the order of z log (z), where z is the size of the segment, and O(1) auxiliary storage. The algorithm performs, in the worst case, for an array of size n, an O(n log z) element comparisons and O(n log z) element moves. Further, no auxiliary arithmetic operations with indices are required. Besides these theoretical achievements of this algorithm, it is of practical interest, because of its simplicity. Experimental results also show that it outperforms other in-place sorting algorithms. Finally, the analysis of time and space complexity, and required number of moves are presented, along with the auxiliary storage requirements of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Auxiliary storage sorting, in-place sorting, sorting.

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567 A Real Time Comparison of Standalone and Grid Connected Solar Photovoltaic Generation Systems

Authors: Sachin Vrajlal Rajani, Vivek Pandya, Ankit Suvariya

Abstract:

Green and renewable energy is getting extraordinary consideration today, because of ecological concerns made by blazing of fossil powers. Photovoltaic and wind power generation are the basic decisions for delivering power in this respects. Producing power by the sun based photovoltaic systems is known to the world, yet control makers may get confounded to pick between on-grid and off-grid systems. In this exploration work, an endeavor is made to compare the off-grid (stand-alone) and on-grid (grid-connected) frameworks. The work presents relative examination, between two distinctive PV frameworks situated at V.V.P. Engineering College, Rajkot. The first framework is 100 kW remain solitary and the second is 60 kW network joined. The real-time parameters compared are; output voltage, load current, power in-flow, power output, performance ratio, yield factor, and capacity factor. The voltage changes and the power variances in both frameworks are given exceptional consideration and the examination is made between the two frameworks to judge the focal points and confinements of both the frameworks.

Keywords: Standalone PV systems, grid connected PV systems, comparison, real time data analysis.

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